My sister, Stella McGuire, who has died aged 70 of lymphoma, was an archaeologist who worked on civil defence at the height of the cold war.
She was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, the daughter of Eric Strong, an accountant, and his wife, Irene (nee Smith), a secretary, who brought up their children to love walking, reading, nature, history and socialism. She lived in Warwick and Leamington until she was 16, when the family moved to Wendover, Buckinghamshire. Attending Warwick high school for girls and Aylesbury high school for girls, she went on to get a first in French from Sussex University.
After teaching for a short time, Stella became an emergency planning officer, and at the time of retirement was deputy director of emergency planning in the South Yorkshire Fire and Civil Defence Authority. Answerable to the Home Office, Stella and her colleagues were charged with implementing the Civil Defence Act (1948). It was the height of the cold war and the Thatcher government was determined to signal to the then USSR its readiness to bear the consequences of a nuclear exchange through well prepared civil defence plans. However, it quickly became evident that such planning would be incapable of offering any meaningful level of protection.
In the 1980s, under the pseudonym Mary A Evans, Stella wrote a feature for the Guardian entitled Just in Case the Deterrent Fails”, about the lunacy of some of the plans. As an active member of CND, Stella led efforts, with her colleagues, to prioritise peacetime emergency planning over civil defence, and contributed to today’s revised local authority emergency planning.
In the 90s, the end of the cold war brought an opportunity for early retirement and the chance for Stella to try her hand at archaeology. At Sheffield University her MA in 1997 included a dissertation on medieval hospitals.
She produced key documents on Stanage Moor and Arbor Low, archaeological sites in the Peak District national park, and she excelled in archaeological excavations. In 2007, she became involved in an excavation project to unearth a medieval hospital in Castleton, run by Sheffield University and Castleton Historical Society, on a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Stella was the natural choice as trench supervisor: consequently, five years of students and volunteers benefited from her knowledge and insights, delivered with quiet diplomacy and gentle humour. She was never happier than head down in a trench, trowel at hand.
In 2014, Stella united her love of archaeology and the Derbyshire landscape by becoming a Peak District national park authority member, with responsibility for cultural heritage. Her last major undertaking was the publication of an engaging booklet on public involvement in Stanage Pole, a landmark on the local moors, and its history.
Her marriage to John Hughes ended in divorce. She is survived by her sons, Matthew and Michael, from her marriage to Peter McGuire, which also ended in divorce, by me, and four grandchildren.
